Madman with a Booth
by oldandnewfirm
Summary: Sheila thought her problems couldn't get any worse. Then some jackass lands his phone booth on her lawn.


**A/N:** This is sort of an AU within an AU— it's an Inspector Spacetime/Kim Possible crossover, Inspector Spacetime being the ersatz Doctor Who series that makes an appearance in the NBC series Community. Since all of the TV shows mentioned in Kim Possible are themselves ersatz versions of their real world equivalents, I figured I'd keep the trend going here too.

* * *

Sheila tore her eyes from her phone in time to see her hydrangeas shimmer like pavement on a hot summer day before they were crushed by the bright red telephone booth that materialized on top of them.

She'd seen booths like it before, scattered across Parliament Square in London. What it was doing on a lawn in the middle of suburban Colorado, she had no idea. Nor did she understand how, despite it being clearly empty as the weird, wobbly sound of its arrival faded out, its door swung open to emit a coughing, stumbling man heralded by a plume of oily smoke.

Something inside of the booth went _crack, _and the man swatted at the smoke with one hand while the other reached beneath the lapel of his hideous turquoise suit jacket and retrieved a palm-sized object she couldn't make out from this distance. A piece of the object slid up and started glowing as the man waved it at the booth. He scowled and started muttering to himself in what _sounded _like English. It was hard to tell, because in a moment he started stomping and growling like a giant five-year-old in the middle of a tantrum.

"What the hell?"

As soon as the words left her mouth the scene came to a sudden, uneasy silence. The man spun towards her, still waving away smoke as he raised his hand to his forehead and squinted at her from across the yard. She didn't move. She didn't blink. Torn between fight and flight her muscles had fused themselves into a hundred and thirty eight pound block of inaction, and all she could do was gawk at the wizard or alien or whatever the hell he was who had just crash landed in her garden.

Now she knew how that deer she'd tagged with her car last year felt.

"Ah!" said the man. His voice was raspy, maybe from the smoke. "You're still here!"

He beamed like that was the best news he'd had all day, then he started towards her. With that, "fight" won. She scrambled into a sitting position in her lounge chair and leveled the phone at him like a pistol.

"Stop!" she said in the booming voice she'd once reserved for perps.

He obeyed. His eyes shifted from the phone to her face, bemused.

"Stay there! Don't move!"

Okay, so less booming and more timorous that time, but the hand clutching her phone remained steady. She flicked on the screen and tilted it forward enough to let her thumb hover over the "Emergency Call" button. Not that she thought the cops would be of much help in this situation, but she didn't have Area 51 on speed dial so the boys in blue would have to do.

He arched one brow— which was more of an accomplishment than it sounded, for his eyebrows were thick enough across his forehead to be prefixed by _uni_— before he raised his hands in the universal gesture of surrender.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Just passing through. I saw those things lurking around and thought you might need some help. But clearly not. You've got a phone."

She ignored his sarcasm, because at "those things" an icy feeling crawled up her spine. Something flickered in the corner of her vision, like a figure ducking out of sight. She swallowed thickly.

"There's nothing there," she said.

"And who told you that?"

Her parents, her brothers, her teachers, her friends, her psychiatrist—

"There's nothing there," she repeated.

"Hm." He tucked his device back into his jacket. "But the things that aren't there have taken quite an interest in you lately, haven't they?"

She didn't answer. But her grip on the phone slackened, just a little.

"You see the problem is that while you may not believe in monsters, they certainly believe in you."

His words called up a memory: shadowy creatures with glowing green eyes and thick black tongues leaning over her bed, leering. She shook her head to clear it, then frowned. "You never answered my question," she said. "Who _are _you?"

The way he straightened and puffed out his chest wasn't the most egregious instance of "cocky" she'd seen, but it came damn close. She'd have rolled her eyes if she felt comfortable breaking her sight line on him for that long.

"I'm the Inspector," he announced. He paused at the end, like he was waiting for a gasp or adoration.

"Um. The inspector of what?"

It took him a moment to realize that the reaction he'd been hoping for wouldn't be forthcoming, and a moment later for his posture to deflate. "Er. Everything, I suppose. Space-time, the universe, that sort of thing."

She jerked her chin towards the booth. "_That's _a time machine?"

"The best one in the universe."

She eyed it dubiously. Though the booth was no longer actively spewing smoke, the air was still gray and hazy. She was amazed her neighbors hadn't called the fire department yet.

"What, that?" He made an irate sound in his throat. "Smoke bombs. A 'gift' from Chancellor Demenz of the Bodrans. I should've known they'd all go off at once. He's had it out for me ever since I beat him at Crossknots back in the third century—"

He looked up, then, and upon seeing her blank stare he cleared his throat and flapped his hand.

"Right, well, that's not important. What we need to do now is find your brothers. And don't worry, I've got the fans cranked up, so the interior should be cleared out by now."

His voice faded as he strolled towards the booth like he expected her to follow.

Over the years since their parents' death, the voice of reason in Sheila's head had morphed from her mother's to her brother Henry's. And right now, he was frantic.

_Call the police, _he said.

Slowly, she slid the phone into her jeans pocket.

_Don't go over there._

The Inspector vanished inside the booth. An unexpected wave of panic jammed her feet into her sandals and sent her bolting across the yard. "Wait!"

The man— the Inspector—'s head popped out again, his brow furrowed.

"What? We haven't much time, you know."

She shook her head. "What do you mean, 'we'? You can't seriously expect me to just drop everything I'm doing and go running off with you in that— _that! _I mean first you're talking about time travel, then smoke bombs, then my brothers— Why should I trust you?"

He leaned around the edge of the booth. Though they were the only ones out here that she could see, he lowered his voice as though to emphasize that he was speaking to her, and only her.

"Because you can see things no one else can. And because you want to know what they are are and why, after all this time, they've started coming after you. I can give you those answers. But you have to come with me."

All the sensible reactions were still swarming through her, of course: apprehension, skepticism, the wonder if she needed to call her psychiatrist and ask him to up her medication. But within them lay something more insistent, something brighter, something she hadn't felt in so long that it took her a few seconds to give it a name: hope.

"There's no way we'll both fit inside that thing," she said.

"Oh, the old girl will take care of that," he said, patting the side of the booth fondly. "There's always room for one more."

He extended his hand, smiling. And she'd seen enough false smiles to know that his was sincere.

Henry's voice was back, and it was livid. _Sheila Gordon, don't you _dare—

She took the Inspector's hand. She'd always been good at telling her brother when to stuff it.

"Right, then," said the Inspector as she stepped into the booth. He'd been kind-of right, she thought— there was enough room for her in here, but just barely. As it was, their arms brushed every time one of them moved. Hopefully she wouldn't have to put up with it for long.

"So, where are we going?" she asked.

"Ah," he raised a finger dramatically, then used it to spin out a series of numbers on the rotary phone dial behind him. "The question isn't _where_, but _when_."

This time, she did roll her eyes.

The strange wobbly sound that had marked the booth's arrival marked its departure as well. Soon, there was nothing left to show that the booth had been there at all but the faint smell of smoke, and broken flowers.


End file.
